Imo State Government has enjoined members of the State Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) to sustain their spirit of accurate, proper and unbiased dissemination of government’s activities, policies and programme as well as other activities in the state.
The government equally enjoined the practising journalists to evolve measures that would checkmate the proliferation of the establishment of local tabloids and subsequent infiltration of quacks in the media sector.
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Declan Emelumba, commissioner for Information, Strategy and Public Enlightenment, said when the new executive members of the Correspondents’ Chapel called on him in his office in Owerri.
Emelumba, a veteran journalist and a two-time member of the Imo State House of Assembly acknowledged that although Imo had emerged as the state with the largest number of both print and electronic media outfits which provide jobs for the youths, the unbridled and unabated establishment of information and pubic enlightenment institutions has continued to pave the way for the eruption of quackery in the highly respected media profession.
He said that the state government had introduced a weekly briefing for all practicing journalists in the state as part of strategies to keep the public abreast of government activities while the 2023 edition of Annual Media Awards for best practicing journalists in the state would take place next month.
Additionally, Emelumba assured that the state governor, Hope Uzodimma in fulfillment of his promise to encourage and to motivate media professionals in the state would soon provide overseas training for some of them.
This, he said would deepen their knowledge in the media profession and also provide a stronger leeway for them to separate the chaff from the wheat in respect of information dissemination.
He commended the state executive of the Correspondents’ Chapel for their ingenuity, vision and novelty through the contrivance of the information not disinformation campaign and expressed optimism that it would assist to separate fiction from reality.
Earlier in his remarks, Nonso Alozie, chairman of the Correspondents’ Chapel, had congratulated the commissioner on his reappointment, inauguration and retention in the information ministry by Governor Uzodimma, stressing that it was a veritable acknowledgement, recognition and appreciation of his outstanding performance as the government’s image maker.
Alozie, a correspondent of the Vanguard Newspapers explained that the “Information not Disinformation campaign” was fashioned to use the right information to redress disinformation especially as it borders on the security situation of the state.
He expressed optimism that the campaign which has already taken off would change the ugly narrative and rectify the disinformation about the state and her security situation.
This, he said, would equally boost economic activities in the state in the spirit of collaboration and regular communication with his ministry.
